[PLUG-TALK] My Job Went to India by Chad Fowler

glen e. p. ropella gepr at tempusdictum.com
Tue Dec 13 18:45:35 UTC 2005


Rich Shepard wrote:
> Perhaps we should import those engineers from China and India and, to
>  keep the balance in trade, export our lawyers to those countries.
> Fair dinkum, eh?

I realize you're joking, of course.  But has anyone considered that the 
domination of the world economy does not lie in engineering?  I see many 
people worried about tech jobs going overseas and "engineering degrees" 
being produced by other countries.  But, it smacks of statistical magic 
  and scary propoganda to me.  What does "engineering" mean to these 
various countries and universities?

Further, as we evolve out of the industrial age deeper into the 
information age, aren't "informationists" more valuable and more 
powerful than "industrialists"?  Assuming society doesn't collapse when 
we cross the Hubbert oil peak, the people who can create and manage 
information will be at the top.  Basically, that means that rather than 
focus on people who create and manipulate _things_ (what I call an 
"engineer"), we need to train people to create and manipulate 
_abstractions_ (Popper's world 3 objects).

Of course, the spectrum of "informationists" spans everything from 
embedded systems programmers (closest to the typical "engineer") all the 
way up to lawyers (justices, legislators, ethicists, philosophers, and 
scientists).  "Business people" sit somewhere in between an industrial 
engineer and a lawyer in this spectrum.

I would no more want the US to be largely populated by engineers than I 
would want it to be largely populated by textile or assembly-line 
workers.  I'd much rather have a country full of CEOs or lawyers than a 
country full of engineers because the majority of the power lies with 
the CEOs and lawyers.

Of course, some type of balance is necessary... and given my skills and 
predisposition, I'd end up being a barely competent informationist or 
one of the second-class engineer-citizens.  But, c'est la vie.  The 
ideal population in my mind would be one dominated by scientists, 
lawyers, and CEOs.  We should outsource most of the engineering.

... assuming society doesn't collapse, of course. [grin]  If that 
happens, then I'd opt for a population of engineers, of course.

-- 
glen e. p. ropella              =><=                Hail Eris!
H: 503-630-4505                       http://ropella.net/~gepr
M: 971-219-3846                        http://tempusdictum.com



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